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1/72 Revell Sopwith Camel, wing looks to high?


phat trev

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Nearly completed a 1/72 Sopwith Camel F1 and the top wing has just been added but... It looks very high when resting on the kits own struts. I had read somewhere that the struts might need shortening for the biplane to look correct and this would now seem a good thing to have done. If I carefully take the the wing off, how much strut would anyone recomend removing?  Those who have built the Revell kit (2004 release).

Edited by phat trev
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From a review I did for Gary Hatcher back in 2009, when they did the box with the nice playing cards on the wings (and a £2.99 price tag, it seems...)

 

"I don’t build many biplanes, but I like to get the struts fitted firmly at one end or the other. In this case, I decided to glue them to the upper wing. The struts are moulded in one piece, with cross bars, making them easier to assemble OOB. But I wanted to correct the length: the interplane struts need to be 17mm long, and the cabane struts 12mm, which requires removing about 2-3mm. I cut out the lower cross-piece and cemented it into the wing slot, leaving sockets at each end, and then trimmed the main struts to length. The cabane struts I simply shortened. I fitted all the struts to the upper wing, and filled the gaps around the slots with Humbrol filler smoothed with nail varnish remover."

 

best,

M.

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9 hours ago, wombat said:

The one on my shelf looks not only high but distinctly bowed upwards in the centre.

Can be, but this affects all Camel kits, and is often an optical illusion, maybe because of the high lower wing dihedral. It can happen though, and in the smaller kits it's because the lower wing hasn't been given enough dihedral. Since the kit is already built, it helps when shortening the struts to do it a bit at a time and test fit the top wing with a strong bar (such as a pencil) taped to it so you can be sure it's level. Shorten the interplane struts first, equally, then nibble away at the centre section struts until it sits pretty. If not already built, it's easier - you trim the interplane struts before painting and installing, then get the top wing on and simply measure the gap with dividers before trimming and popping the centre section struts in. More of a problem with the 1/28th kit where the top wing often arrives bent in the box and needs flexing at the start. Like all these things though, the fix is quick, and not difficult. The hardest part is being lucky enough to find out before you begin.

 

Paul.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I haven't done a Revell 1/72 Camel for a couple (or more) decades, but I agree, it doesn't look right.  And when I built my last one (Roy Brown, of course), I didn't have the Datafile, or any other authoritative reference. 

All that being said, here is an idea I came up with, along the vein of using Strutz. 

Assemble the struts as you have indicated -- interplane with the strut bar to the top wing, so you can blend that sort-of-a clever idea into the wing.  Cabane struts to the fuselage.  Don't shorten anything yet!  Figure out where your struts meet the wings -- interplane to the lower, cabane to the upper, and mark the locations.  Now, drill locating holes at those intersecting points, just large enough for the struts to poke through.   You might need to create airfoil-shaped holes with the aid of a sharply pointed hobby knife.  Set your wing where it should be, apply your choice of glue.  Let it dry, then trim your projecting struts, sand them down flush with the wing, and do your paint touch up, or if you left the 2 wing surfaces unpainted, go paint them. 

All this presumes that you have the rest of the model painted, and you will be able to cover the entire model while you paint the top wing upper surface, and the bottom wing lower surface. 

Should be relatively simple, and negates the need to do any guessing/measuring as to how much strut to chop off. 

 

Good luck.

Bob C   

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  • 3 weeks later...

I reckon the Revell Camel is underscale. I have one sitting alongside a Roden one and the Revell Sopwith F.1 is definitely smaller. Of the 'older' Camel kits, strangely the ancient Airfix (1958) one builds into a quite acceptable replica of a 2f1 - as long as you fix the lower centre-section which bizarrely has the fabric rib detail running the full span! Did Airfix produce the  kit using only an upper three-view drawing from a the Putnam book? I suppose we shall never know.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I don't have a Revell Camel kit, but the gap between the upper and lower main planes at the fuselage is 5 ft which means 21 mm in 1/72 scale. The stagger at the center section is 18 in and at the outer struts is 18-5/16 in (6.35 mm and 6.46 mm in 1/72 scale).

Measure the dimensions of your model to find if it is OK.

 

Jun in Tokyo

https://www.flickr.com/photos/horaburo/albums

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have started working on this kit for the Classic Revell group build that is going on now.  I am very glad I found this thread before I got very far!    Thanks for posting the measurements!

 

My kit has a flat top wing but the lower wing was very wonky.  One side has the correct(-ish) amount of dihedral, while the other side has none at all.   At first I thought the wing saddle was wrong, but it wasn’t.    I had to resort to applying a little tamiya extra thin in order to soften the styrene so I could bend it and get it to stay…..

 

 

 

 

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6 hours ago, RC Boater Bill said:

I have started working on this kit for the Classic Revell group build that is going on now.  I am very glad I found this thread before I got very far!    Thanks for posting the measurements!

 

My kit has a flat top wing but the lower wing was very wonky.  One side has the correct(-ish) amount of dihedral, while the other side has none at all.   At first I thought the wing saddle was wrong, but it wasn’t.    I had to resort to applying a little tamiya extra thin in order to soften the styrene so I could bend it and get it to stay…..

 

 

 

 

The upper wing dihedral is nil, the lower wing dihedral is 5 degree.

https://rara.jp/image_view/bfa291f8d1f6666eca577c11e165a7e0/1005615545

Jun in Tokyo

https://www.flickr.com/photos/horaburo/albums

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Looking at my playing card RNAS camel, the top wing looks very bowed down from the front but bowed up from the side - as Paul says its an optical thing.

 

I used the Revell wings and tail (which are nice and thin) with the Academy fuselage which has more detail. The Roden 1/72 is much better but harder work, you really need a jig.

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Has anyone used the kit decals in the playing card version of the kit?  Are they OK?   I ask because I am building one now, for two reasons:   (1) as part of the Classic Revell group build; (2) For my club’s 2022 theme build, which is “Canada”. (So I really want to use the markings for Breadner’s plane.)

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4 hours ago, RC Boater Bill said:

Has anyone used the kit decals in the playing card version of the kit?  Are they OK?   I ask because I am building one now, for two reasons:   (1) as part of the Classic Revell group build; (2) For my club’s 2022 theme build, which is “Canada”. (So I really want to use the markings for Breadner’s plane.)

 

Yes, they are superb. Almost too good - the real playing cards were rather rougher than the kit version. Went on beautifully and the fit was very good, very little touching up of the tail edges was required.

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  • 2 months later...
On 9/27/2022 at 3:41 AM, Junchan said:

The upper wing dihedral is nil, the lower wing dihedral is 5 degree.

https://rara.jp/image_view/bfa291f8d1f6666eca577c11e165a7e0/1005615545

Jun in Tokyo

https://www.flickr.com/photos/horaburo/albums

Jun,

 

I owe you a much-belated thanks for posting this almost 3 months ago!   I took that image and printed it out at 1/72 scale, then used it as an alignment guide to get the dihedral and strut length correct.   

 

I was originally going to build the model as a simple OOB, using the kit markings ( but I couldn’t let the wing height go un-corrected).  The kit decals actually worked out OK.   If anyone wants to see the result, it is posted here, in the KUTA 2022 Group Build thread….

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235117872-2022-kuta-gallery/&do=findComment&comment=4568660

 

spacer.png

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

So just out of curiosity, for anyone who has the measurements and was working on the kit (here's looking at you, Bill!), what was the result?  Is the kit off/way off, or was it not too bad? 

 

Happy New Year, 

Bob C

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23 hours ago, Bob C. said:

So just out of curiosity, for anyone who has the measurements and was working on the kit (here's looking at you, Bill!), what was the result?  Is the kit off/way off, or was it not too bad? 

 

Happy New Year, 

Bob C

Bob,

 

On my kit/ build, the height was off by the thickness of the wing, about 2mm or so.   Using the  drawings that Jun has provided the link to,  I did the following:

 

- assemble the fuselage halves.

- use the side view to get the lower wing incidence correct, then glue the wing in place

- once that was set, I used the front view to get the lower wing dihedral right.  My kit’s wing was off by quite a bit - one side was almost perfect, while the other had no dihedral at all.  I scored the root a bit, added some glue to soften the plastic, and carefully bent the wing to the correct angle, and let it set.

- With the lower wing correct, I then used the front-view drawing to get the top wing correct, using just the wing struts.  
 

I did all this just by eyeballing it- no jigs, calipers, or micrometers involved.   I’m happy with the result- it was supposed to be a quick OOB build, to showcase the markings.  But the added effort to fix the wing height was worth it, IMHO.

 

EDIT:  forgot to mention that once the wing was set, the cabanes could be added.  They needed to be trimmed a bit as well….

 

Edited by RC Boater Bill
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